


perception of truth

by hariboo



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:38:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>isshin never thought he was such a good liar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	perception of truth

 

 

 

It takes him a second to realise what is happening.

 

 

-

 

 

He rolls his shoulder, arms making wide circles in air, as he gets used to this new powerless body. Uruhara's hat shades his eyes, but even so Isshin can feel his fellow ex-captain's pointed gaze. Always a scientist, forever taking note of his experiments, Isshin thinks, shifting his weight around, feeling how the skin of this body stretches and bends and mimics him. It feels too real, he says, too right.

"It's fucking creepy," he says. This body's fingers curl and uncurl like they were his own.

Uruhara's lips curl at the edges, "Soon it will feel like home."

"Maybe."

"Are you sure about this, Isshin? The old man would still—"

Uruhara's hat tips over his nose, the shadow curving over his cheekbones. Isshin swings his arms around, uncomfortable at how his reiatsu feels in this body.

"I'm sure, Kisuke."

The fan flips open over Uruhara's lips and he waves his hand around with a grin.

"Just think of all the fun you'll have!"

Isshin grins wide, laughs.

Nobody in the room is fooled. He's never been a good liar.

 

 

-

 

 

When Ichigo screams and cries over his first spirit, he sits Masaki down and tells her everything. Well, everything he can. It's not much in the end; he's lived a long time after all.

She cups his chin, holding a cried out baby to her breast and nods, "I always knew you were an odd one."

"I'm sorry, Masaki. I didn't think—my powers, they never really did come back."

"And now?"

He looks at the small head of orange hair of his son. "Ichigo started to cry." He felt the reiatsu that same second the crying started. It was small and strong and it's wrapped tightly around his son. When Isshin touches him he can feel it's hum.

Masaki looks down at Ichigo. One hand passes over his hair and she shifts him closer to her. Ichigo's breaths, heavy with the reminder of tears, pull at his chest.

"Maybe it's a good thing." Masaki whispers, eyes lifting to Isshin's.

Isshin nods; he can't say anything.

He's not a good liar.

 

 

-

 

 

His powers come back. Slowly and surely, with each passing year as Ichigo grows. When the girls come Isshin can pick up on their slight reiatsu — Karin's stronger than Yuzu, and Ichigo's ever growing — and he worries. When Ichigo starts talking to the spirits Isshin ignores the burn in his chest but they never let Ichigo feel like there's something odd about talking to the spirits. That's mostly Masaki, because Isshin isn't very good at pretending. Not at first. Soon he learns to ignore them and his powers are still low and hidden within this body that they never notice him. For a while he thinks that's a good thing.

For a while he thinks it's fun at how Ichigo talks to the air and how Karin's eyes follow her brother when they have these extra guest in their life. Yuzu pouts at first, but soon get used to only feeling. Isshin learns from his youngest how to ignore and live with the fact they can't see ghosts.

For a while it's how their family works.

It's good, for a while.

 

 

-

 

 

Ichigo and Masaki go for a walk.

 

 

-

 

 

Isshin's spirit is too weak to leave his body when he feels the spike of Ichigo's reiatsu, too strong for a (human) kid.

He's not the first to find them. He's not the second. He's barely the third.

Masaki is gone by the time he gets there and Ichigo feels too tiny in his arms. The memory becomes a twisted, faded nightmare and for two months Isshin shares his bed with three small bodies. Ichigo is the first to move back to his room, suddenly acting too old and angry for an eight year old, Karin is the first to stop crying, Yuzu is the first to tell him everything is going to be okay.

She sticks to his side all the time now, little hands clenched in his slacks. He's burning dinner. Karin and Ichigo are too silent by the television. There's a show on but he doesn't think they're listening anyway.

"Daddy, daddy, daddy," she tugs on the material, "I can help. I want to help."

He almost tells her she's too little, that she could get burned, but instead he dumps out the curry he just ruined and then he lifts her up into his arms.

Tiny arms and legs wrap around him and they make their way through the curry recipe. Her cheek rubs against his stubble and he sits her down on the counter next to him. She reads out the recipe to him and whenever he makes a mistake, mostly accidentally, sometimes on purpose, she pokes his cheek and corrects him. He pokes her cheek back, and they both laugh. That's when he feels the shared gaze of his other two children, but each time he looks over his shoulder their looking back at the television.

"It's gonna be okay, daddy." Yuzu lays her head against his shoulder as his stirs.

Isshin covers her head with her hand, marvelling at how little she still is, how little Karin still is, and even though he has the spiritual energy of an adult, how little Ichigo is. And yet, they're not longer kids. Not the same way they were before.

"It is, Yuzu-chan."

He still not a good liar, but he will say what needs to be said to make his kids feel better. When they sit down for dinner, Ichigo and Karin compliment Yuzu on the cooking and Isshin pouts. It almost feels like normal.

 

 

-

 

 

 

Life is almost normal.

For a while.

As normal as life can be when you children can see or sense spirits and you're lying to them about who you really are.

 

 

-

 

 

He should have know his punk of a son wouldn't be able to stay out of trouble. He had always hope that the boy would take after his mother.

 

 

-

 

 

It takes him a second to realise what it is. It's been a long time and he's fallen into a routine. It's a simple one:

wake up, stretch, find the loudest clean shirt in his closet, touch the family picture by his bed, barrel into the kitchen, pick up and spin Yuzu in a circle as she laughs and beats her tiny hands on his shoulder because he's making her spill breakfast, grab some coffee, pour it into his favourite mug — WORLD'S BEST DAD!!! — with three messy signatures on it and smudged fingerprints that Masaki had helped the kids make two months before she passed, drink the coffee, then crack his neck as he takes a running leap at Karin who will elbow him in the face (or knee him, depending on the day), smile privately at her reflexes, then he stands and watches over his girls as they banter over breakfast and until he slinks of into the corner of the room waiting for Ichigo to come in and he attacks, he's more creative with Ichigo—a flying kick or body tackle, and then he'll smile privately at his son's reflexes. Morning passes and he works until the kids comes home and the house is filled with their sounds again.

For weeks after Masaki's death — murder, because Hollows kill, and the knowledge the Grand Fisher still lived eats at him every day; revenge still burns in his veins, but he had promised her: the kids come first. Our kids come first. — the house had been so quiet. Ichigo didn't call out for Momma every other second, Karin didn't cry anymore, and Yuzu bit her lips constantly as if she was afraid of her voice. He had hated every second of it. And so he started making up for their noise which only had them become louder to shut him up.

Slowly sound came back to the house.

Still Ichigo didn't call out for his mother anymore, how could he, how could any of them, but he would scowl and roll his eyes and he never did go back to his martial arts classes, but he learned to dodge every punch Isshin would toss at him. Karin still didn't cry but she started to run and play and make Yuzu smile.

Healing does take longer in the Living World, he's learned.

And the open wound of Masaki's death closed slowly. He had never been much for healing back there. Much like he hadn't been much for routines, but now they're like breathing, he can't imagine his life without the clinic (maybe one day he'll send Restu-san a long letter about how much she is now his hero), without the sounds of his house, without them. For all the choices he regrets, for all the things he's done he wishes he could make better there are three reasons why he knows he's in the right place.

For others it would seem like a madness, for others it _did_ seem like a madness, and it's possible they were right. Karakura Town, of all places. Quiet little Karakura Town with it's streets filled with ghosts.

And then it all changes (again) and for a second he doesn't even realise what it is even it floods his senses.

A reiatsu.

Not Ichigo's, Isshin registers absently.

Shinigami.

Then too fast for him to do anything his house shakes and explodes, the world soon after it, and he feels the change in the air as his son takes a sword.

His life's been routine for twenty years, one of waiting, healing, loving, and protecting. With Ichigo's reiatsu coiling around wild and sharp, almost as if it's eating at his son, Isshin wishes his routine would have lasted longer.

The Shinigami — a girl, small with fierce eyes — tries to change his memory, but it doesn't stick. He isn't human after all.

The next morning he barrels into Ichigo's room, doesn't see (for the first time ever) the punch and kick his son delivers (already his speed is surprising), and watches the shock and relief wash over his son's face as he talks about trucks and accidents. Ichigo's eyes are dark and he lies to Isshin. Pride and sadness twist inside him. Isshin tries to headlock him, pulling him to the kitchen where Yuzu is making breakfast, and the scuffle down the stairs.

He doesn't need to look in the mirror to know Ichigo's eyes look the same as his when he lies, pretending there's nothing wrong.

Like father, like son.

They're not very good liars.  



End file.
